Got Me A Vivitar 285HV Flash
I’ve been wanting to expand my outdoor, small flash lighting gear for a little while now. At the top of my list of purchases was the Vivitar 285HV shoe mount flash. I went ahead and bought the flash last week from Amazon through the Sublime Light store. It came on Friday and I’m very impressed by what I’ve seen so far.
The Pros
Cost. This flash is only $89 on Amazon.
This flash is all about simplicity. I absolutely LOVE how simple it is. Want to turn the power output up or down? Just turn the dial. No LCD screen. No buttons. Just turn the dial. This is a major peeve of mine with my Canon 430EX. The buttons are hard to push and you really have to work at it to adjust the power output. Not with the Vivitar.
Keeping with the theme of simplicity, zooming the flash head is also manual. No buttons, no LCD. Just grab the head and pull. I like that there’s no motor to break as the unit ages.
Speaking of the flash head, there’s a slot in the front of the head for a diffusion panel (included). In that same slot you could slip your gels. No more using sticky Velcro to attach gels to your flash! I’m really starting to like this flash.
Now here’s where things get really smart. The folks over at Wein made their tiny little optical PND Peanut Slave so that it fits perfectly into the PC socket in the Vivitar 285HV. This means that you can just plug it in and your new flash will fire when it sees the flash from one of your other flashes fire. This is great if you’re buying this flash to add to your studio setup, because you can forget about buying more gear to hook up your new flash. Just place it within 100 feet of another flash and you’re all set. Very cool.
The Cons
Of course this isn’t God’s gift to photographers by any means. The flash isn’t perfect. If you want a flash that you can plop right on top of your camera and have it do everything automatic…well, this isn’t your flash. If you’re like me though and want to fire this thing manually from off the camera, then this is your flash.
The first thing that struck me about this flash was it’s size. I expected something a little smaller. It’s not small, it’s actually quite large. But that’s okay, because the $89 price tag more than makes up for it.
Conclusions?
So far I give this flash two big thumbs up. It’s a sure winner. Of course I intend to give it a full workout. In fact, as you read this I’m in the beautiful Rocky mountains of Colorado on vacation (bet you didn’t know I’d take care of you even on vacation huh?). While there I fully intend to give this flash a good run through and push it to the limits. When I get back I’ll tell you all about my conclusions.
Want one of your very own? You can get it right here in the Sublime Light store, powered by Amazon! This is a great way to support the site you know and love. Thanks for helping out!
And I want to know what you think of this flash. If you have one, drop a comment and tell us all about what you think.
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September 28th, 2007 at 1:50 am
I bought two of these flashes as part of the Strobist Kits from Midwest Photo Exchange. The flashes work flawlessly and I probably got the two kits for the cost of just a bit more than 1 Canon flash. However, the Wein Peanuts were no good and ended up going back and being replaced with two slaves from a company called fotodiox that seem to work considerably better.
No complaints on the flashes so far. Simple, powerful and great for off-camera use (and on camera, too, if necessary).
September 28th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Yeah, I agree about the Weins. I bought one with my 285hv from mpex and the same situation. Moishe replaced with a fotodiox and things work much better now (my d40 on camera flash won’t trigger it, but my sb-800 will; guess I can’t have everything
September 29th, 2007 at 1:33 am
I never tried it with the on camera flash but one fotodiox seems to work fairly flawlessly, triggered by the 285, the other one a little less so. It’ll have to do until the budget allows for something else (Pocket Wizards, maybe?)
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for the comments guys. I got a chance to work with the Vivitar a little while on vacation in Colorado and I’m VERY happy with what I saw. The Wein slave also worked pretty good, even in full sun. However, I didn’t use it a ton, so the jury is still out. Thanks for the heads up on the Fotodiox slaves, I’ll check those out. The price certainly looks good. If the Wein truly turns out to be a dud, I’ll give it a try.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I see that the Vivitar 285hv has been replaced by the LumoPro LP120 flash on Midwest photo exchange strobist kits. Is this a right flash to get these days?
April 6th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Angie,
This is a flash that was commissioned by Midwest to answer some of the wants of the Strobist. David Hobby writes about it at http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/03/manual-flashes-two-debuts-and-adoption.html.
Although there seems to be some quality issues in the fit and finish, it sounds like it would be preferable to the Vivitars in terms of the flexibility (sync jacks, built in slave, etc.)
I’m far from being any kind of expert but I think the flexibility makes it a good choice.